Always the hero
by 8pain
Summary: Turnball has managed to survive the sinking ship, but not his wife. He blamed Artemis Fowl, and so he decided to let Artemis experience what he did as he watched his wife die. However, Artemis won't let his friends die when he knows that he can stop Turnball. Rating is due to gruesome content and character death. The plot revolves around after the big show down.


**I don't own Artemis Fowl, and all characters belong to Eion Colfer. **

** So a quick introduction to help out with the confusing part at the end. After Artemis was put inside the clone of his body I don't think he would have been able to resume his life with the other humans. The people who lived around the Fowl Manor would have asked too many questions. So he probably would have been living down in Haven. He had already proven himself to be their friend, albeit a bit of an annoying mud man from time to time. So onward with the sad story.**

_Sound?_ Yes, there was a sound coming from somewhere in this darkness. I had been wandering in it for so long, where was I? There had been an explosion, and then what? I ground as a throbbing pain echoed in my head. It was distant, but slowly growing. The explosion, Butler had pushed me away from it, then what? The throbbing was getting worse, and the sounds were getting louder. My eyes flickered, they were covered, and something was on my face.

I tried to lift my hands but they were numb, everything was numb. I felt a sort of distance from my body. Why was this? I needed to remember. Butler, no that wasn't what, no he had pushed me away from and explosion and then we had escaped. That wasn't the last thing I remembered. I had been talking to Foaly we had gotten into an argument. Did he do this to me? No, that is not what Foaly is like.

A roaring sound blared into my ears and I screamed. Pain, everywhere all over my body, but my legs, I couldn't feel my legs. _Unless, my legs are okay, and everywhere else is so injured that it is stopping me from feeling them._ Something cold was blowing over me, ah the wind. It picked up small ruble and dragged it across my injuries. _Rubble?_ Yes, there was rubble everywhere because…because…there had been a threat. My friends were in danger, _and the pain_!

Somehow Julius's brother had survived. Yes, he had barely managed to escape; it had cost him his right eye, and an arm. He had blamed me for the death of…I couldn't think through all of the pain. There was too much of it, and I was only human. Ice cold hit me all over causing me to scream again. It felt like I was being skinned alive, or that my outsides were on my insides. Searing pain was flashing all though me, around my face on my shoulders. My screams sounded like a dying animal, and in some ways I guess I was.

"Artemis!" That was Juliet; she was calling out to me.

I wanted to respond back to her, but now my voice was clogged. Earlier I could scream just fine, but now I was choking on something that was salty. Blood! I was choking on blood because I had gone out to meet Turnball Root, like a show down of some sort. The others had been infected and he had the cure. Juliet's screaming was getting fainter and fainter. The pain was thankfully recessing with the rest of my senses, dulling into the darkness.

No, I needed to stay awake Juliet needed me, and I still wasn't done remembering what had happened. I had met him, and I had two things with me. _Black sand? _No a machine of some sort that I had slowly…what? Something important, that stuff was the key element in my plan. It fell from my grasp, and I had felt victorious. Why? Why did that stuff cause me to win? I didn't feel like a winner. The pain was coming back now that I refused to pass out like my body wanted. I heard a gasp right above me, and then uncontrollable sobs. Something wet was falling on to me, was Juliet crying over me? I needed to get her to stop, comfort her, do something, but the pain had won. My body was carrying me into the numbing darkness. I would have to ask her what had happened when I woke up.

"Why Artemis? Why do you always have to be the hero?" Juliet asked while staring down at his torn up body.

To say he was a gruesome sight was an understatement. His lower torso had been completely torn off and was twenty feet away, halfway sticking up out of the rubble. His color bone was visible and so were the bones of his right hand. She had broken hands and arms before, but she had never wondered what they looked like. Now she could clearly where each of them was situated. His middle abdomen had at least ten metal rods sticking out of it. His intestines had either fallen out or were hoisted out of his body on those rods. When she had first seen him she hadn't believed he was still alive. Then she had hopped he was dead and couldn't feel the pain. But the strangled breaths had given her hope.

She had run, screaming his name until she was right next to me. Her tears fell freely onto her face and she could imagine him scolding her. However, just as she was about to call out to Holly, Artemis stopped breathing. The realization of what had just happened caused her to freeze, and then she fell down at his side, placed her hands in the middle of his chest, and shoved down for all she was worth. Butler had told her that if she did CPR right she should break a few ribs. But the crunching sound she heard wasn't his ribs; it was another metal rod that had only just broken through his spine impaled his heart and bust through his sternum so that she was staring directly down at it. Torn parts of his heart were clinging to its rugged edges.

She turned her head and vomited onto the pile of rubble. She had just killed him, or if he was already dead then she had ruined any chance of survive he had. He hadn't even died in his original body, maybe another clone. No, nothing was going to bring him back now. Holly was now standing right next to her, and Juliet could hear Foaly on Holly's com shouting at Artemis's dead body.

Weeks later while attending the closed casket funeral in Haven Foaly told the small story of how Artemis had saved them all.

Turnball had poisoned everyone but Artemis so that Artemis could watch everyone he cared about die, just like Turnball watched his wife die. While everyone had grown weaker Artemis had become more frantic to find a cure. Then he had discovered that Turnball had put the antidote in Artemis's own body so that he could live while everyone else died. It had taken him a day to drain enough blood for the amount of the antidote needed. Artemis had it passed around to everyone, but because of the diseases particular adaption rate it could only work once. Artemis had discovered were Turnball was; he was in an old nuclear bomb storage facility.

Everyone was still recovering from the sickness, and Artemis decided to go there alone. Foaly had found out about his plan and had tried to stop him, but Artemis had the advantage over the sick centaur, and had managed to get onto a shuttle and leave. Passed that they could only guess what had happened. They know Artemis had been working on an imploding device that looked like black sand. When they had searched his private research facility in Haven they discovered that it had been missing. The last of the cloning devices was also missing, along with a hair from Turnball Root's wife that had been stored in her file. The records of the facility show that the weapons had been turned on at least five minutes after the hypothesized arrival of Artemis. The police think that the cloning device and hair sample might have been a bargaining chip, but his friends believe that Artemis would have only used it as a distraction. The bombs had started to go up which triggered Artemis's imploding devices stopping the bombs from killing anyone else, but they also caused the building to collapse, and for the two occupants to be sucked in as well. Artemis had suffered major injuries including the complete removal of his right eye which, upon examination had been removed a lot cleaner than the rest of his missing body parts. Turnball had also been found with only minor injuries which included his other hand and also sever neck wounds causing him to be mute. The injustice was felt throughout the whole ordeal, as Juliet, Butler, Holly, and Angelina Fowl watched his incineration knowing that even though Artemis had won, he had also lost.


End file.
